Friday, 14 December 2012

The future of the 127 film format currently looks uncertain: earlier this year Fotokemika announced that it was ceasing production; Fotokemika were the manufacturers of Efke films, including R100 in 127 format. The production line also handled the Retro 80S 127 film from Maco, sold as either Rollei Retro 80S or Agfa Retro 80S, meaning that there are now no black and white 127 film in production. (Maco do currently sell a couple of 'experimental' colour films in 127, but it appears that these are from Agfa 46mm filmstock on 127 spools).

I had one roll of Retro 80S to for the Winter 127 day on 7th December. Loading the film into my Baby Ikonta, I took a walk along the perimeter of the Olympic Park from Leyton to Stratford. Having left my Weston light meter at work, I used the Sunny 16 rule for exposure: this is a lot easier when there is actually some sun to go by, as a grey winter's morning in the northern hemisphere can be very dark indeed.

Skeltons Lane Park, Baby Ikonta, Agfa Retro 80S

When it came to developing the film, I got to the darkroom to discover that the thermometer was missing. Impatient to develop the film, I opted to use stand development at something approaching ambient temperature. From my previous experience of Retro 80S, where I've found the film to be high in contrast with the highlights all too easy to 'blow out' (although the flat overcast light would have taken the edge off the contrast in itself), I used Rodinal in a dilution of 1:150 rather than the more usual 1:100 for stand development. I've used this dilution with other high-contrast films such as Tech Pan and the Ilford data film HS23.